What do Maggie Thatcher, Paul Keating, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump have in common?

Former prime minister Paul Keating is the Maddies’ Maddie, writes Phillip Adams. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Nikki Short

Many members of the opinionista – fellow columnists, particularly those of the conservative persuasion – tend to repeat themselves. By writing and rewriting the same tirades, ad nauseam. Neither out of absent mindedness nor for emphasis, but seemingly in an endless attempt to finally get the column right, or in their case ultra-right. No need to name them. You know them.

But a timely confession. I, too, have been known to plagiarise myself. And today is a case in point. Every year or so I return to (or recycle or revise or update) a column inspired by a great truth recounted to me by Tony Benn, the late, great figure of Britain’s Labour Party.

Benn was a thorn beneath the saddle of his near namesake Tony Blair as the latter rode off to the Iraq war with Georg W. Bush and John W. Howard. Benn had given up his aristocratic title – Viscount Benn – to become a working class hero and the nemesis of Blair. And the great political truth he told me was this: every politician, irrespective of party, gender, political system, nation or time in history, can be categorised as either a Straight, a Fixer or a Maddie. The third group are those who, for good or ill, change history. And I suddenly realise that Mr Benn didn’t define himself.

In UK prime ministerial terms John Major was a Straight, Harold Wilson (for whom Benn served as a minister) a Fixer, and Maggie Thatcher a Maddie with bells and whistle. Among US presidents, George H. Bush was a Straight and his son a Maddie. Tricky Dicky Nixon was a Fixer who broke his own presidency and damn near his nation. JFK? A Fixer from a family of Fixers. LBJ? A Fixer on a grander and more successful scale – but he couldn’t fix the Vietnam War. Ronald Reagan? A Maddie who made major decisions influenced by paranormal advice from the astral plane, via his eccentric missus Nancy. Towards the sad end RR was certifiable. Clinton, a Fixer.

Trump? A major Maddie who should be sectioned if he can’t be indicted. Obama, although a sad disappointment, was comparatively Straight. Biden? A lifelong Fixer who has yet to prove he can fix his failed state.

In Moscow, Gorby was a Fixer who accidentally broke his Soviet Union. Rootin’ tootin’ fast-shootin’ Putin? A militant Maddie.

Here, the classic Fixer was Neville Wran. Not for nothing was he given the shifty nickname of Nifty. Hawkie? A Fixer par excellence. Keating? Paul purred with pleasure when I named him the Maddies’ Maddie, a status not to be confused with minor Maddies like Hanson, Latham and Kennett.

Straights? Curtin, Chifley, perhaps Holt. Failed Fixers include McMahon, Fraser and Turnbull. John Howard? He feigned being a Straight while perpetrating the most mendacious Maddie policies. (Remember his wrecking-ball approach to the three Rs: Reconciliation, the Republic and Refugees?)

The incumbent? Straight, but erratic.

Of course, Maddies abound everywhere. They’re the anti-vaxxers, the QAnonners, the white supremacists, the neo-Nazis, the conspiracy theorists, the rusted-on Trump supporters (who include most of the above). What’s the old saying? Everybody is mad but you and me – and I‘m not sure about you. Or me.